The Ghost Tree. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Start small,’ Timothy had said, and she had listened. But now at last they were about to hit the big time. She had looked up the house prices around Number 26 and they were astronomic. Once they had pocketed the deeds to that place and sold it on, she had calculated they wouldn’t have to work again. And now it was all being threatened by this bloody greedy daughter who had never cared for the old boy anyway and by Finlay Macdermott, of all people. She could hardly contain her rage.

      With a sigh she turned out the lights in the kitchen and stamped up the stairs to the small back bedroom. Drawing the curtains before reaching for the light switch, she hauled a heavy suitcase out from under the bed.

      Opening the lid of the case she looked down at the newspaper-wrapped contents. There were candlesticks, spoons and forks, small dishes. She pulled out a large square parcel and unwrapped it. She knew what this was. She had seen it on an antiques programme on the telly. A standish. A sort of pen and ink holder. The glass bottles for the ink had hall-marked silver lids. There weren’t any pens with it any more. She ran her finger over the intricate designs carved onto it. Victorian, she supposed. It was sad that it would have to be melted down; the swirls and curls on the silver appealed to her. The other stuff was more austere. Georgian probably. She had made good use of her study of daytime TV. The value of silver had dropped, but it was still all worth a lot of money by their standards.

      She couldn’t see how Tim’s claim to that old boy’s inheritance could fail. She had thought of everything, even the DNA. It had been a shock when they discovered he had a daughter, but that almost certainly didn’t matter. Donald Dunbar hadn’t mentioned her to Timothy in all those months; it would be clear to the solicitor that he had intended to disinherit her. She shivered. It had only been chance that Timothy had spotted the letter on the mat from the solicitors to Ruth that day; otherwise they wouldn’t have known what was going on.

      She replaced the standish in the suitcase and shoved the case back under the bed. Standing up, she turned away and caught sight of the pictures with their gilded frames stacked behind the door. She wasn’t sure he should have bothered to remove them; they would have come anyway with the whole inheritance. But if anyone asked, he could always say it was to keep them safe in case the house was burgled. She gave a wintry smile. Shuddering, she studied the picture facing her. Ghastly woman in a lace-trimmed bonnet. Hideous face! But an oil painting nevertheless and who knows, it might be by someone famous. Or of someone famous. The jewellery she had locked in a drawer, all except the small bag of rings that Timothy had pocketed and she had demanded back as soon as they got home. There was other stuff too, which Timothy had removed little by little over the last few months. He was fairly certain he had taken everything of value. Poor old Donald had been oblivious, pathetically grateful for the attention that had been given him, clinging to her hand when she had gone to visit. She did not allow herself to remember the time when, with tears in his eyes, he had called her Ruth.

      She moved over to the table by the door. There was a cardboard box she hadn’t even bothered to unpack; odds and ends Timothy had taken from the cupboards upstairs in Donald Dunbar’s house. Reaching in, she pulled out a small painted wooden box. She shook it experimentally then wrenched off the lid. There was a bundle of old sticks and rags inside. She stared down at it, puzzled, not making any sense of what she saw. Was it some kind of a primitive doll? Whatever it was, it was a dusty mess which smelled revolting and gave off an icy breath as though it was alive. She slammed the lid back on and rammed the box into the cardboard container. Why in God’s name had the idiot brought that here? She shuddered and reached towards the box with the intention of taking the object, whatever it was, downstairs and binning it, but she couldn’t bring herself to put her hand anywhere near it again. It emanated evil. She backed away from the table, aware that her whole body was trembling. Reaching the door, she groped for the handle, not taking her eyes off the box, dragged the door open and dived through it before slamming it shut behind her.

      Standing on the landing she could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She grasped the newel post and hung on desperately, afraid she was going to pass out; her mouth flooded with bitter saliva and she realised suddenly she was going to vomit. She just made it to the bathroom, throwing herself down in front of the toilet, drenched with sweat as she retched again and again.

      It was a long time before she managed to drag herself downstairs to the kitchen. She put the kettle on with shaking hands. It must have been the takeaway she and Timothy had had the night before, she decided vaguely. Prawn curry. Always a mistake. Perhaps that was why Timothy hadn’t come home. He had been smitten too. She glanced at the clock on the wall above the bread bin.

      Carrying her mug of tea, she went through into the lounge, turned on the light, sat down at the table and reached for her mobile. ‘Tim? Where the hell are you?’ It was a moment before she realised it had gone to voicemail. The bozo had turned it off. She slammed it down on the table and swore again under her breath.

      Upstairs, in the back bedroom, a frosty rime was slowly spreading across the floor.

      ‘If I’d known helping you with research was going to be as much fun as this, I would have cleared my schedule the moment I met you!’

      It was a sunny morning and Finlay had volunteered to drive Ruth over the Queensferry Bridge across the Forth and on to St Andrews to have lunch, naturally, and to look for Lady Buchan’s Cave.

      They were standing at the top of the cliff, looking down at the rocks below, between the cathedral and the castle, the stark stone of the ruins warmed by a sun already low in the west. This was a dramatic coastline, scarred by history and the unrelenting onslaught of the sea, the rocky ribs and sandy coves washed constantly by the force of the waves. They had toured the cathedral and castle and been met with puzzled shakes of the head when they asked about the cave. No one had heard of it. Then at last they had been directed to a local historian. ‘I’m afraid the sea took it,’ he said mournfully. No one had ever asked him this question before, he said, and he obviously felt he had failed them by having to tell them it had gone. The cave had succumbed to the constant erosion of the cliffs sometime in the nineteenth century.

      ‘But it must have been down there somewhere,’ Ruth said sadly, ‘and on those beaches below it, Thomas played with the drowned boy.’

      Finlay shuddered. ‘I’m not sure I’m so keen on that idea. Or chasing up your ghost monks at Inchmahome. Can we leave those as read? What about a quick trip to the Caribbean instead?’ and his booming laugh echoed off the walls of the castle tower.

       15

      By the time the Tartar sighted Barbados on 13 May, Tom had settled into the routine of shipboard life as if he had been aboard one of His Majesty’s ships for years. He was a good pupil and full of energy. He learned fast and made friends easily amongst the men and the officers; the gunner’s wife who was charged with overseeing the welfare of the boys on the ship kept a quiet eye on him, as always trying to avoid favourites and knowing that any signs of preference for one boy over another would lead to jealousies and petty cruelties out of sight down on the orlop deck. One boy had already been badly hurt when the fixings of his hammock had been loosened and he had fallen awkwardly onto the boards beneath.

      Jamie and Tom had whispered together that night; they knew who had done it and why. At eight years old, Robbie was the youngest and smallest boy aboard the ship. He still cried at the end of his watches, thinking his tears were inaudible, and when the gunner’s wife went to comfort him he clung to her and begged to get off the ship, seemingly unable to comprehend that they were at sea, far from any port. She did her best to reassure him whilst drying his tears and robustly trying to instil what she called backbone. It was of little help. The boy was СКАЧАТЬ